Category Archives: Africa

WRECKED is a play about home. It’s about family. It’s a play that focuses on the journey of the Lost Boys and Girls from Sudan to Kenya and, ultimately, Chicago, Illinois. A story about how we never really leave home. How our memories, whether good or bad, of actions or inactions haunt us. It is a story that gives us a glimpse into the lives of refugees.

When I wrote WRECKED I could not have imagined the world we live in today. I couldn’t have imagined the stream of images of refugees fleeing their countries only to find that they are not welcomed in ours. I could not have imagined the turmoil that so many refugees are still going through in our world, under our watch. WRECKED is my response to this hostile environment and is a peek into the lives of immigrants in America.

Even with the ongoing conflicts abroad and the turmoil so many immigrants are going through, WRECKED is a story made possible only by the support of the immigrant community. This includes a theater company like Fehinty African Theatre Ensemble (FATE), a company in its tenth year of meeting its mission of celebrating African plays and playwrights and which took a risk on me and allowed me to spend a year studying, inventing, and workshopping WRECKED; a diverse and highly talented cast and crew willing to share, question, and understand the journey of the Lost Boys and Girls; and a community of supporters that spans continents. It is because of the immigrant community that I am able to bring a play like WRECKED to the stage, and for that I have found joy, hope, and a home on stage. I have found that I must take the opportunity to share not only the challenges we face as immigrants, but the pride and hope that we have and carry with us wherever we are forced to make home. Because if not me, then who else?

As tightly woven and complex as life can be, it is important to find a place where you can be safe telling your story, where you can grow and make mistakes, and pick up the pieces knowing that you have given your all and were able to own your voice. There are very few places to do that on stage as an immigrant, and fewer as an African. FATE has given me that; they have provided me with a home, and I am forever grateful to have my first feature play produced by Chicago’s first African theater company. Please consider donating to this theater and its mission so that many more African playwrights and talented artists may also have a place to speak their truth and share their stories.

WRECKED is dedicated to my family for always finding a way to avoid, overcome, and flourish in the midst of life’s wrecks. For your unwavering love and support for me and my art, and for the home you have built for me off stage that allows me to build my world on stage. Thank you, for the love you have given me can only exist in heaven.

Join us this weekend for the last run of WRECKED at Prop Thtr for this inspiring story of Sudanese Lost Boys and Lost Girls in Chicago. Tickets are just $20 at http://www.fehintytheatre.org. Enjoy the show!

CHICAGO, IL— Fehinty African Theatre Ensemble (FATE) is excited to mark its 10th season with the world premiere of WRECKED, written and directed by its 2016-2017 Artist-in-Residence, Philister Sidigu. Ms. Sidigu writes the story of an immigrant seeking a future while haunted by his past. The main character Kuol, having survived the civil war of South Sudan and life in a refugee camp in Kenya, is chasing his American dream in Chicago as he struggles to provide for his family as an Uber driver. Kuol, a man forever a Lost Boy and no stranger to struggle, is barely surviving while tightly holding on to his dreams, memories, and reality. His ability to keep holding on is tested on a serendipitous encounter that threatens to destroy his future.

Placed in present day Chicago, WRECKED grants its audience access to the assimilation process of African immigrants and the challenges they face in America. Questioning and exploring the current political atmosphere, WRECKED touches on themes of race, police brutality, economic mobility, and what it means to be a feminist. WRECKED challenges its audience to ponder, who am I, who are you, and what are we? In this America, is there room for all of us?

FATE is ecstatic to partner with Ms. Sidigu to produce her first feature play in Chicago. A Kenyan American, Philister received her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University. Alum of Columbia College in Chicago with a BA in Film and Video Production, she began writing early on producing and publishing plays, poems, and films that received recognitions and readings from Goodman Theatre, Regina Taylor’s State(s) of America series, Northwestern University’s African American literary magazine, Community Film Workshop and Kartemquin Films.

FATE seeks to produce creative works from Africa and its diaspora that feature the continent’s range of stories, traditions, customs, and history by holding space for the African community and its friends to gather and engage in cross cultural dialogue. The African theatre ensemble encourages emerging African artists to write, perform, produce, direct, and present their own stories to share with the world. We invite you to join FATE for the world premiere of WRECKED on May 19, 2017.